CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1994 Jon A. Webb
CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER returns Harrison Ford to the screen as Jack Ryan (PATRIOT GAMES), now taking over as the Deputy Director for Intelligence of the CIA from James Earl Jones. Unfortunately for him, the President of the United States, played by Donald Moffat, is once again planning an illegal war, and Ryan is supposed to be the fall guy.
This is a conventional spy-thriller, as you'd expect. I found it a little bit boring towards the end. Somehow this kind of action film doesn't seem to me to be quite suitable for Ford, though he's played them often enough. I'm thinking of THE FUGITIVE, where Ford and the bad guy, both middle-aged, spend fifteen minutes or so running around bashing each other. Something very much like that happens again here. It's like watching those B-grade sci-fi flicks of the Fifties, made with plastic-model dinosaurs, which always seem to move with jerky slowness, even when they're trying to bite each other's arms off.
The thing I liked best about this film is Anne Archer, who plays Ryan's wife in a small role. She's aging, beautifully. There are not many roles for middle-aged women anywhere; they get discarded once they can no longer play someone in their twenties, regardless of how talented they are (Meryl Streep), as stewardesses used to be. I'm happy Anne Archer, at least has found a part she to which she can bring her elegant beauty for at least a few more years.
Willem Dafoe puts in a nice turn as the ambiguously evil free-lance CIA operative who runs the war. But I would've preferred Chuck Norris in this role. After all, we know Dafoe can play this kind of part, can Norris? He would've fit the action-hero scenes better, too.
Harrison Ford doesn't get to use his trademark confused-intensity look here much. He says it himself, "I hate this job." He's supposed to be much more of a direct-action type here than he was, say, in PATRIOT GAMES, where his family was at risk. His only conflict is over loyalty to the President, which is oddly downplayed in Philip Royce's direction (given that its the only source of dramatic conflict.) As a result, he just doesn't have that much to be confused about. Pity.
The script is about average for this kind of film. I've given up expecting great attention to detail; it just doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. For example, when Ryan buys something expensive, you'd think that no one in the world has ever gone to a South American country pretending to be associated with the CIA and trying to get something for nothing, or South Americans are unbelievably stupid. Or the nonsense about breaking into computers, or a scene which reminded me of the joke about a blackmailer handing his intended victim an incriminating photograph: "Be careful, that's the only copy I've got."
Overall, it's an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours, but not a terribly entertaining way. It's not as good as TRUE LIES, though you may find yourself put off by TRUE LIES tongue-in-cheek approach to spy thrillers (though I didn't.) This is meat-and-potatoes fare, served up a little too cold.
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